"Porgy," 1925

DuBose Heyward incorporated real-life elements of Charleston, South Carolina into his 1925 novel Porgy. The book's setting is based on an all-Black tenement in Charleston nicknamed "Cabbage Row"; some characters speak in a regional language called Gullah. Following the novel's critical and commercial success, Heyward and songwriters George and Ira Gershwin wrote the beloved 1935 opera adaptation, Porgy and Bess.